- Officials report that the number of new COVID-19 cases at nursing homes has declined by nearly 50 percent in recent weeks.
- They say vaccination programs are a major factor.
- They note that the success came despite a high percentage of nursing home employees refusing to get vaccinated.
- The nursing home case reduction bodes well for the rest of the country as vaccination programs are expanded, say experts.
The situation with COVID-19 and long-term care facilities in the United States has certainly changed drastically in recent weeks.
At the end of June, more than 54,000 residents and employees at nursing homes had died from the disease, according to a report from the AARP.
AARP officials pointed out that residents of long-term care facilities constitute less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, yet 43 percent of all COVID-19 deaths through June occurred in these facilities.
By Thanksgiving, the death toll among residents and employees at long-term facilities had surpassed 100,000.
In the past 2 months, however, the number of cases has dropped dramatically, thanks in large part to vaccination programs.
On Monday, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported that in the past 4 weeks, COVID-19 cases in nursing homes had declined by more than 50 percent.
During the week ending December 20, the centers reported more than 33,000 cases of the virus.
But during the week ending January 24, the federal agency said there were slightly more than 15,000 cases in nursing homes.
To some extent, the development reflects a downward trend in new cases across the country, health experts say.
That’s because COVID-19 cases in nursing homes are driven to a great extent by infections in the rest of the community, Dr. Ashish K. Jha, MPH, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told the New York Timesthis week.
But Jha emphasized that the drop in nursing home cases is more pronounced than it is nationally. It also began earlier.
“That combination really does make me think this is not just broad national patterns, but that vaccines probably are playing a role,” Jha told the Times.
“I’m optimistic, this is good,” he said.
Other experts tell Healthline that the success at nursing homes bodes well for the vaccination program overall in the coming months.
However, they note there are still issues that need to be resolved at long-term care facilities, not the least of which is the hesitation among nursing home employees to get vaccinated.
Source: healthline